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Why Infrared?

the exciting thing about this creative photography. Syriza's. I get to go over all these different samples of ways that you can tell a story with your photography, and we're focusing on things, especially that the human eye for me I'm doesn't typically see whether it's a macro photography. We were looking at that, you know, microscopic world, whether it's looking at underwater photography, where we're actually spending time shooting either under or right around the water where we don't normally live. Panorama photography that we're gonna be touching on tomorrow again is a different way of seeing the world. This view that we're looking at up here is 180 degree view of the island of Molokai. And that's not what you would see if you were looking right there. Molokai stretched out. This looks like Gilligan's Island because you can actually look up the coast and down the coast, which would be behind your back. You can't see it, so there's all sorts of things that we're gonna be covering rel...

ated to different ways of seeing that aren't your typical capture. And if there's anything that is more unique in terms of way of capturing the world. It's obviously this area of infrared because of this being basically invisible to the human eye. How infrared light is being captured with a special customized camera to allow you to see this portion of the light spectrum is magical. Um, there's probably some animals that can see more closely like this, but really as far as us as human beings go, it's another world. And as far as a photographer, the great thing about that is not only is it this ethereal other world, but in terms of what we can do with our composition and tonal range and just visually how we're looking at the world, it's very unique and very different, I was mentioning yesterday. One of the main things I love about infrared photography is it makes such a great walk around camera. One of these converted a special out use a lot of pocket cameras, like converting a pocket camera infrared because they work at basically any time of the day. You can't as an example. If you were to look right here at the shot, it's probably a little hard to tell what time of the day it is because the light is coming from the foliage. Actually, omitting the radiation is being reflected back. So we get this very ethereal way of how light in shaping the scene. And that makes it excellent for any time of the day, including middle of the day, which normalised photographers we stay away from, like the plague. So, uh, I'm excited by different because it is so unique in terms of how we capture a scene. Infrared photography, um, is complex in terms of the science behind it. We could actually do an entire day just on the science behind what import it is and how it's captured. And there's all sorts of different ways that you can tackle this area of infrared as an example. Great for Divine Vinson. For Sochi has classes that he doesn't infrared beautiful work. He tackles infrared very differently than I do. Hopefully, he and I actually teach a class together just because we're so different in how we talk about and use infrared. It's a wonderful counterpart today. We're gonna be focusing on how I worked with him for it, and that's gonna be a simplified version. In other words, it's going to be a simple as it can possibly get. We will be using customers, cameras. But in terms of how we tackle the shooting and the processing of images, it's gonna be a very simplified process. From that standpoint, if you thought this was gonna be a science class, it's not in that same point. It's very, very simple point. Okay, I thought I would start off with, um, some samples of infrared photography. You're seeing this one up here on the wall? This Actually, this first image is the same shot as this one. This is Mawr, even though this is a panorama that has been stitched inside a photo shop. This is basically what was on the back of my camera while I was shooting. You notice here upon the wall, this one, we have inverted the color scheme. So the what was the CPS in the sky and the little scions? The cools in the foliage of the natural shot have been flipped or reverse. And now the full edges warm. The sky's the more traditional blew. A lot of people like this general look in their eye are so there's a connection to it. The yellows in the sky for some people really is not something that they like. And this is actually something that we're gonna do in Photoshopped. This is something where you really can't do it inside of light room or adobe camera raw. And that is where we're gonna be doing our processing. You can use other raw converters. Um, the ones that come with your cameras, such as the Nikon Capture and X, are the ones that come with can. And you can use those for converting your files into your final images that you're gonna print or share. I use light room specifically, but Vatican is the same engine as we have in adobe camera raw. So but no matter what you use, you're not gonna be able to do these sorts of tricks the inversion of the color process in Iraq and burger, where the light room, adobe camera, raw capture annex or anything like that just because those sort of converters air geared toward optimizing your image, not doing special effects. And this idea of flipping how colors work is best done in programs like photo shop, which is where we're gonna be spending the afternoon. That's the great thing with this class here is we have the first part talking about the inspirational aspect of infrared. Why we're using it middle part. A little bit of shooting out in the field. Fortunately here in Seattle, when we did our shoot related to this class, we had beautiful blue, sunny skies We've got, you know, springtime here in Seattle. Everything is green. It was perfect for shooting infrared. Today we've got overcast. Tomorrow we have rain and we're back to normal. Seattle those perfect in terms of our shoots here. And, uh And then, like I said the afternoon we're gonna be tweaking our hearts out. Would that I'll also mention that if you're tuning in and you go, well, I don't have a camera that can shoot infrared. I have plenty of filters that can turn an image into infrared. Right that's built into light room now has infrared presets that come from adobe. There are ones built into photo shop, and even Nick and others that have black and white conversion filters and software always have a little setting that they call infrared, which really has nothing to do with really infrared. Where you're able to do there is you can make your blues dark and your greens light, but you're not really shooting real imprint. But it makes for beautiful dramatic landscape shots and even beautiful portrait work. We will be covering in this class today how to take your full color images and imitate infrared because one, if you're just tuning in and you haven't sent a camera out to be converted one, you can't follow along, and it's a little frustrating. That's not very nice toe say that everything that we're covering today doesn't relate to you. So we will be talking about traditional black and white conversions of images and had to get these dramatic effects in terms of things that look like infrared. We're also going to be talking about in relationship to light room in adobe camera, raw as well. It's photo shop how you can imitate the subtleties of infrared, especially traditional film based infrared, which has a certain glow or Hayes to it as well as they usually were high I s O film based. So they had kind of a noise or a grit to it. So that kind of glowing, gritty film look is another thing that we're gonna be talking about whether you're starting with an infrared original or traditional full color image. Also, at the end of the day, we're going to be going into hand tinting of black and white images. So whether you're starting with an infrared shot or traditional black and white will be going into hand tinting of images as well as CP atoning Zion. A typing those sorts of things. But what's known as the split toner inside of light room and a doe became a wrong. So that's all. Just say you don't have a camera that's converted. Stay tuned. We're gonna have more than enough stuff related to that as well. Okay, so going through, ah, fume or samples of work in some of the stitching I'm speaking of here is a image the same image, sure black and white. That was done. A lot of people don't like the subtleties of color that are inherent in infrared again. In a bit, we're gonna be talking about the different ways that you can get a camera converted shoot in the infrared spectrum, you can have it converted into a pure black and white with Basically, it takes away any color option out of the file. Some people like that. That's not my preference, but this would be the file converted for infrared, and some people were talking asking about the sharpness of the file. This happens to be done. This file was taken, actually think with not even part of the G Siri's from the cannon. This was done with Power Shot 8 70 which is even smaller little teeny pocket camera. But it was done probably with a dozen different images shot as a panorama. Hence, I could zoom in a little bit on the scene, get a full say, 12 megapixel shot for each one of these stitched together and end up with my 100 megapixel file. And that would is what's giving us this detail on the images. We're also gonna be talking about how to print the files. And if you need to, uh, press the files, that's one of the nice things with a new current version of photo shop. Was the ability to up raise your files better than ever before? So we gonna be touching that In this case, I also did you'll notice I've got a cute little frame in here. What I've done some madding because this was a print that was gonna be done for a wall where quick and dirty we had to imitate as if it had been matted in the frame. So in this case, we cheated for that. Okay, we're gonna, um, mention assed part of this area of infrared that you can convert your camera to shoot both in full color and an infrared. It's not something that I recommend because it's a little bit of a Cluj to your file to your camera, because basically, what we're doing when we're shooting with the infrared portion of the spectrum were having to customize the camera to remove what's known as the infrared inhibitor or the hot mirror. All your cameras, especially digital cameras, have a this hot mirror that actually removes infrared from the capture, because infrared by itself actually degrades the image a little bit. So they put into this filter. It's a very light filter, but it does have a significant effect of the amount of light hitting your sensor. Probably half of the light hitting your sensor is in the infrared spectrum. So by cutting out that you're actually cutting out a huge part of light. It makes the image better in full color, but it actually is cutting out a lot of light. And that's why we can actually remove that. Add this basic black piece of glass, this regular infrared filter, and get back Teoh basically the same shutter speeds as you'd have with a normal camera. That's really is the miracle that's happening with an M parade. Converted camera is you're able to shoot in parade handheld, see the world in infrared and basically have the same shutter speeds that you would with a regular camera, which is just awesome. You've ever shot traditional infrared film. You know that piece of black glass on top of your camera would make it that your typical exposures and film infrared were seconds, if not minutes long, to allow enough like to hit your sensor to get a correct exposure. So this right here is an example, and I've got some other examples of a shot that was taken with the camera, and specifically Fuji is the only camera manufacturer that still makes it. They probably don't even make it anymore. You have to go online a camera that has no hot mirror in it so that you can use it for forensics. Basically, it allows the camera to put on infrared or ultraviolet filters on top of it for work in the police departments. Basically a forensics cameras. You've probably seen CS I and all these other things the different filters you can put on it to see blood or find all sorts of other things that you don't want to think about inside of hotel rooms where there's been grisly crimes. Um, and I've got one of those cameras from Fuji that lets me shoot full spectrum is what it's known as, and it's kind of nice that you still have a traditional color image, except that your greens are primarily going gold in the file. And it can be nice for some things, as we're seeing here in this shot that's also been enhanced with some little texturizing going on to it. It's nice, but it's because it's not a real dramatic look, and it's fairly easy to shift your greens over two oranges. It's not really something that most people would do the one thing that is kind of nice if you get into ultraviolet photography again because it's not the dramatic darks and lights that we have. An infrared usually is not used for fine art photography, but it does allow you multiple options. If you want to convert a camera and what's known as full spectrum, and then you can add filters afterward, after a break, we'll talk a little bit more about that and again about whether you're wanting to get a single lens reflex camera, a traditional big boy, big girl camera converted or something that has an electronic viewfinder again. That's normally where I'm gonna be focusing my work on this right here, which is the sample that you're seeing throughout. The promo is more traditional infrared in the sense of the color range that we're getting, and this again was taken with a can in this case, a Jeanine power shot. Jeanine, basically the older version of this pseudo pocket camera. Love them. They're built like a tank that shoot raw. They have all their manual controls. They have a wonderful setting inside of them that allows you to shoot. Panorama is in the sense of it helps you stitch. Panorama is with getting this overlap that's necessary for the images to align some beautiful options. The G nine lets you shoot a lot of different ways in terms of panoramas the G 15 that I have here, not nearly a smudge in terms of panorama, but it still works wonderful. We'll be using this out in the field when I show you some videos later on about US shooting here in Seattle A couple days ago, this shot was taken over in Molokai, Hawaii, in a place called Hlava Valley on the northeast corner of Molokai Little Church down in the valley. And I love it, Um, and especially in terms of our ability to grab some significant resolution in the file, this has actually been gone through a piece of software known as detail. That's giving me a little bit of sharpening. You can see here where it's actually doing almost a graphic design effect on it, but it's allowing me to get a new hair int sharpness in it for these large prints. The last class you may have noticed that I had here for light room here, a creative life. We use this as a background, and it had a similar blow up to this one that we had here, so when we get into our digital darkroom aspects of, um, optimizing an infrared. I'll talk about that as well, especially since I do use the smaller sensor cameras, the less pixel count for my infrared photography. I will use special little jiggery pokery to kind of get the most out of the images. Um, so this is probably 1/2 a dozen images, and this is the color that's coming out of the camera. That's also one thing that we're gonna do after the break is talking about creating a custom white balance for the image. Infrared images as a default are red, reddish, pinkish, purplish depending upon the sensor and the infrared filter that's being used and, um, the little blood pinkish images. For some reason, we don't use too much for the fine art photography you'll be seeing that because when you shoot in the raw file format, you can get back to exactly what was actually captured. The magic with infrared, especially with digital, is by creating a custom white balance. We can tell the camera, basically take what was red and what should have been a more neutral color. Um, and could you please remove the color from that. And by balancing out or shifting that red spectrum, it can actually neutralize the vast majority of the image, leaving behind the subtleties of CPU to science, which I love. That's why I'm gonna be using either what's known as a standard infrared conversion or an enhanced color conversion. Um, those are the two ones that I like. And again, it gives me a very, very unique story in terms of the work. Ah, another large file that I'm you can see taken again with a small little pocket infrared camera of Yosemite Valley. Another panorama I love shooting the panorama is again often times with our infrared photography. We're talking about landscape. That is the typical way that we are using infrared. So we are going to be talking about in using it for portrait's as well. It has, in a beautiful ability to capture skin tone in a very unique way, almost ghostly. And that's where it kind of comes in is a very unique, whether it's a feature or a bug. For some people, it's it's this waxy almost looks like a mannequin look because it is so what it does to the the reds in the skin and since also, when we talk about the technology behind infrared, it has a thermal aspect to it. So human bodies actually are emitting a radiation that it is picking up. So the glow that we're seeing in full egx, Excuse me, is actually allowing the skin to glow itself. There is light, in a sense, coming from skin, which is creepy in a really cool way. And it's a wonderful thing because it allows for skin tone because toe have this kind of uniform softness to it. Rather than being shaped by the visible light, we're combining visible light with this invisible light that's actually coming from bodies.